Legendary author Maya Angelou dies

[Mel1973]

I gotta narrow it down. Right now, I'd be covered!

[*DIVA!]

She wrote this for the passing if James Baldwin and read it at his funeral.

Maya Angelou:

When Great Trees Fall


When great trees fall,
rocks on distant hills shudder,
lions hunker down
in tall grasses,
and even elephants
lumber after safety.


When great trees fall
in forests,
small things recoil into silence,
their senses
eroded beyond fear.


When great souls die,
the air around us becomes
light, rare, sterile.
We breathe, briefly.
Our eyes, briefly,
see with
a hurtful clarity.
Our memory, suddenly sharpened,
examines,
gnaws on kind words
unsaid,
promised walks
never taken.


Great souls die and
our reality, bound to
them, takes leave of us.
Our souls,
dependent upon their
nurture,
now shrink, wizened.
Our minds, formed
and informed by their
radiance,
fall away.
We are not so much maddened
as reduced to the unutterable ignorance
of dark, cold
caves.


And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly. Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be
better. For they existed.

[*DIVA!]

BET did a tribute on her honor.. They showed her arriving to receive her Presidential Medal of Freedom!! Breathless

[*DIVA!]

Her funeral was amazing. She was as warm personally as she was publicly. She made people feel welcomed in her life and home. I don't shed too many tears over celebs passing but today.. I wept at her living and with the family and friends who stood up and spoke of not only the woman, the Dr, the author, the poet, activist..but the mother, the nurturer, the friend, and the lover of Christ! Here was a woman cloaked in love and faith and knew that Everyone deserves to be treated, respected, and loved!! My God what an amazing woman!
I did not know she was wheel chair bound and for the last ten she battled dying of a pulmonary disease.

[Chalet]